Who are Green Street Blues and what do we do?
FIRSTLY….WE LOVE SINGING
We are a ladies a cappella chorus who rehearse in Sevenoaks, Kent. Our 30 members, from Kent, Surrey, Essex, and Sussex sing without any musical accompaniment in gorgeous 4-part harmony.
Green Street Blues are affiliated members of Making Music and The Ladies Association of British Barbershop Singing (LABBS) and through them have access to renowned singing coaches and training resources. We rehearse each week moving songs in and out of our repertoire on a regular basis and compete in local and national competitions as well as public or private sing-outs and fundraisers and just for the love of singing. Some, but not all, of our repertoire is sung in a specific “barbershop style”. All are songs that have been arranged into 4 vocal parts about a third being arrangements that we have commissioned from top UK and US a cappella specialists.
Green Street Blues have sung at a variety of venues: from local village halls and churches to The Festival Hall; the Camden Roundhouse; The Northern College of Music and at the Bournemouth Festival of Choral Singing. We sing our own repertoire (including songs popularised by Billy Joel, Take That, Nat King Cole, The Beatles and Amy Winehouse) and collaborated with a variety of choirs from genres such as gospel, folk, sea-shanties, sacred and Bulgarian!
We compete each year in the LABBS Convention, an autumn competition for barbershop choirs and quartets. In 2015 and 2011 Green Street Blues were awarded the Phoenix Trophy by LABBS for being the highest scoring Small Chorus of the Year (some of the northern choruses are 60-70 strong!). In 2010/09/06/05/03 &02 we were Bronze Medal Winners and in 2007 we were Silver Medal Winners so we have a proud history and still take the competition seriously.
Anybody is welcome to join Green Street Blues whether or not they are new to a cappella or can read music. Many of us had not sung since school and use teach tracks and other learning methods rather than the sheet music to learn our parts. We are a very friendly group of ladies and if you would like to get a real flavour of what goes on to produce the unique and mesmerising sound of close harmony a cappella singing, why not join us for a rehearsal evening? we rehearse at The Drive Methodist Church in Sevenoaks (TN13 3AB).
Click on the Contact Us or Join Us pages on the main menu for more information.